I saw Birdman Wednesday night at an advanced screening in downtown Seattle. I don’t think my audience knew what to make of it. It definitely suffers from many of the issues that Alejandro Gonzalez Innaritu’s films typically fall prey to: overwrought dialogue; characters who serve as symbols or ideas nothing more; and a bit too much fixation on misery and regret.

Still, I loved Birdman and can’t stop thinking about it. Hit the jump for my video review, and share your thoughts on the film in the comments below.Read More »

Forget Guardians of the Galaxy — this year’s most unusual superhero movie has got to be Alejandro González Iñárritu‘s Birdman. Though to be fair, it’s not so much a superhero movie as it is a superhero movie movie.

Former Batman Michael Keaton plays a washed-up actor who got famous years ago playing an iconic superhero. In a bid to recapture his former glory, he decides to put on a Broadway show. On his way to opening night, he struggles with everything from egotistical actors to an unhappy family to his own troubled soul. Watch the new Birdman international trailer after the jump.

We’ve been waiting for what seems like forever for Ed Norton to firm up plans to direct and star in a film based on the Jonathan Lethem novel Motherless Brooklyn. But we haven’t been interested in the idea for as long as Norton has. He optioned the novel when it was first published, in 1999, and has been trying to get the film made ever since. File Motherless Brooklyn under “passion project,” then — fifteen years is more than enough time to qualify the active pursuit of material as such.

After all that time trying to launch the film, the money is now coming from RatPac Entertainment — that’s the company run by Brett Ratner and James Packer, which just had its name on The Lego Movie and is behind Cameron Crowe’s new film, too. Read More »

Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg filled their directorial debut, This Is The End, with a plethora of famous faces. For their first dip into feature animation, they’re doing something similar. Rogen and Goldberg are producing the R-rated animated film Sausage Party, aimed at a 2015 release, and have tapped James Franco, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, David Krumholtz, Kirsten Wiig, Edward Norton, Nick Kroll and Rogen himself to provide voices. Read More »

In Garfield Minus Garfield, artist Dan Walsh erases the signature orange tabby from each panel of Jim Davis’ comic strips, turning what was once a cute cartoon about a mischievous cat and his exasperated owner into an unsettling portrait of a lonely man.

The new video “Fight Club minus Tyler Durden” does pretty much the same thing, only with (you guessed it) Tyler Durden and a scene from Fight Club. Instead of talking to a Brad Pitt, Edward Norton is now chatting and brawling by himself in the parking lot. Watch it after the jump. (Spoilers for Fight Club ahead.)

We just saw a new poster for The Grand Budapest Hotel, from Wes Anderson, and that image featured portraits of the individuals in the huge ensemble cast. Now there’s a new trailer, and it is all about introducing the characters played by the whole bunch.

Along the way, we get a better outline of how the film fits together, starting from the point where F. Murray Abraham, seemingly as an older version of the young Zero Moustafa (Tony Revolori), narrates his story to the young writer played by Jude Law. There’s so much here: Harvey Keitel’s prison tattoos, Jeff Goldblum channeling J.K. Simmons’ character from Burn After Reading, and Tilda Swinton swaddled in old-age makeup, for starters.

It looks like a screwy comedy, with everyone having a hell of a time, but there are shadows of more serious events here, too. And, for everything that’s in this trailer, it doesn’t seem to give too much away. Read More »

Any “most anticipated of 2014” lists we run here will likely feature Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel, which opens in March of next year. Anticipation comes not just based on the fact of a new Anderson movie, but the ensemble cast that always comes with such an endeavor.

This time, it’s Ralph Fiennes, Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Tilda Swinton, Edward Norton, and Saoirse Ronan, for starters, who will wear the meticulously designed, Anderson-approved costumes. You can see them all in a new poster below, in advance of a new trailer tomorrow (Thursday, Dec 19). Read More »

Saturday Night Live doesn’t have a reputation for lampooning independent filmmakers too often, but they do love jumping onto a good meme and Wes Anderson parodies have definitely reached “meme” level. Leave it to the legendary sketch comedy show, though, to use their considerable resources to make the Wes Anderson parody to end all Wes Anderson parodies.

It’s called The Midnight Coterie of Sinister Intruders and stars Edward Norton (himself a star of Moonrise Kingdom) as Owen Wilson (Anderson’s frequent co-star and co-writer) in a horror story that also “features” Anderson players like Adrien Brody, Alec Baldwin, Anjelica Huston, Jason Schwartzman and many others. Some even as themselves. Check it out below. Read More »

Wes Anderson‘s The Grand Budapest Hotel is ready to invite you in. Fox Searchlight has released the first trailer for the highly anticipated movie, which chronicles the goings-on at a fancy hotel, like friendship, young love, art theft, and possibly — gasp! — murder. Check it out after the jump.

The big guy in green is having a big day. Just as Joss Whedon and Mark Ruffalo, the two current carriers of the Hulk torch, commented on the character’s future, one of his previous directors has made a very interesting claim.

Louis Leterrier, the director of 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, revealed he spoke with Mark Ruffalo about playing Bruce Banner in his film, but Marvel didn’t think he was right for the role. Read the quote below. Read More »